Aaron Altherr

[hongwei28]

Very few teams can boast of a winning record against the Vegas Golden Knights this season. The Edmonton Oilers are one.

Connor McDavid had three assists to push his NHL-leading points total to 106 and help Edmonton beat Vegas 4-3 on Thursday night Jake Marisnick Houston Astros Jersey , improving to 3-1 against the Pacific Division winners.

”Obviously to come from behind was nice, especially on a team like that which has been so good,” McDavid said. ”To win the season series 3-1, it’s a little feather in our cap.”

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Matt Benning, Mike Cammalleri and Ty Rattie scored for the Oilers. They snapped a five-game losing skid.

”It is a little bit gratifying knowing you can play with some of those top teams, but obviously we didn’t play our top game enough this year to put ourselves where we want to be right now,” said Oilers goalie Cam Talbot http://www.broncosauthorizedshops.com/authentic-daesean-hamilton-jersey , who made 30 saves to collect his 30th win of the season. ”It is bittersweet getting a big win against a team like that which is in first place in your division, but after Saturday they keep playing and we don’t.”

Brayden McNabb, Brandon Pirri and Oscar Lindberg replied for the Pacific Division-leading Golden Knights. They had won three in a row.

”We’ve been pretty good as of late,” McNabb said. ”We’ve had a couple of stretches where we’ve had breakdowns, but that’s hockey. It happened, we have to keep building we have one more left and we’ll keep building for Game 1 of the playoffs.”

Edmonton opened the scoring seven minutes into the opening period. McDavid started a three-way passing play that culminated in Nugent-Hopkins scoring his 23rd before goalie Malcolm Subban could get across the crease.

The Knights tied it two minutes into the second period when McNabb took the puck at the point off a faceoff before dangling through traffic and beating Talbot.

Vegas took the lead three minutes later on Pirri’s goal.

Benning’s shot from the slot went in after Subban got a piece of it to tie it at 2.

Edmonton went ahead 3-2 midway through the third on the power play as McDavid poked a puck away from a defender behind the net out front to Cammalleri, who notched his seventh.

McDavid picked up a third assist three minutes later, feeding the puck to Rattie picked the top corner for his fifth goal in 13 games with Edmonton. Vegas got one back with five minutes to play in the third frame as Lindberg was left alone in the slot and beat Talbot.

Notes: Defenseman Zack Whitecloud made his NHL debut for Vegas. The Brandon http://www.ramsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-joseph-noteboom-jersey , Manitoba, product signed as a free agent out of Bemidji State on March 8. … Defenseman Keegan Lowe, son of former Oilers star Kevin Lowe, made his Oilers debut.

UP NEXT

Golden Knights: At Calgary on Saturday in regular-season finale.

Oilers: Host Vancouver on Saturday in regular-season finale.

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During his first stint in Seattle, Tod Leiweke helped develop the Seattle Seahawks into a benchmark franchise.

He’s returning to the Northwest this time with a chance to build a franchise from scratch – pending NHL approval.

Leiweke was introduced Wednesday as the CEO and president of the prospective NHL expansion franchise seeking to call Seattle home beginning with the 2020 season. The announcement has been expected since Leiweke announced he was stepping down from his role with the NFL earlier this year. But it was another step forward for the expansion bid.

”It’s kind of fun to start from scratch because you can build a culture the way you would want a culture to be built with likeminded people who want to serve, who love the game of hockey. In this, it is a grand opportunity,” Leiweke said.

The prospective majority owner of the franchise http://www.vikingsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-mike-remmers-jersey , David Bonderman, said he believed there could be a possible conditional announcement about the franchise from the NHL in June and a potential formal announcement in September coinciding with upcoming NHL Board of Governors meetings.

”We hope there is not any doubt about it and it’s certainly not just a formality. However, there is a process with the NHL and we expect to play through that process,” Bonderman said.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, speaking before the playoff opener in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, wasn’t as optimistic, saying there is no set timeline for a decision on Seattle’s expansion bid.

”We don’t have a timetable,” Bettman said. ”That would be nothing more than speculation. I would be surprised.”

While announcing the president and CEO for a team that doesn’t exist yet might seem a bit presumptuous http://www.vikingsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-jalyn-holmes-jersey , Leiweke brings the kind of clout that will only strengthen a bid that almost appears to be a foregone conclusion.

Oak View Group, a partner in the franchise and the group responsible for renovating KeyArena, is expected to begin construction on the building later this fall and have the remodel done for the 2020 season. The season-ticket drive that started on March 1 was a rousing success and was capped at 33,000 deposits.

Leiweke got his start in hockey with the Minnesota Wild. He also worked in Vancouver and most recently helped build Tampa Bay into a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference. Leiweke left the Lightning in 2015 to become the COO of the NFL and didn’t have any interest in leaving the league office until the project in Seattle began to gain real traction.

”The fact is I found the NFL to be a pretty amazing and fascinating place to work and I was starting to get quite comfortable in my role there so I wasn’t looking,” Leiweke said. ”But I think the stars aligned and my son’s advice was, `Dad, how can you not do this?’ Today, I think he’s right.”

Leiweke’s job will be to capitalize on a market whose demographics have changed significantly since he left the Seahawks in 2010 after being largely responsible for the team hiring head coach Pete Carroll. Seattle is the largest market in the country without a winter pro sports franchise and has seen an influx of wealth in recent years. Even when he was running the Seahawks Boone Logan Milwaukee Brewers Jersey , Leiweke believed Seattle was ripe for the NHL and the response to the season-ticket drive only strengthened that belief.

”It really is a great fit. I always thought this could be a great hockey market and it proved it. So far, so good,” Leiweke said. ”Now it’s on us because I think people are going to show up opening day ready to believe and what are we going to put out there? Does it all connect?”

Leiweke’s hiring also reunites him with his brother, Tim, the CEO of Oak View Group, which created the privately funded deal to finally solve Seattle’s arena issue.

”I’m so in awe of what we did here,” Tod Leiweke said. ”This has been a challenging issue and my brother came in here and figured it out.”

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